Probing Three-dimensional Collective Cancer Invasion with DIGME

TL;DR

This paper introduces DIGME, a mechanical strategy for engineering 3D tissue environments, enabling detailed study of collective cancer invasion and tumor dynamics within patterned microenvironments.

Contribution

DIGME provides a simple, versatile method to manipulate 3D tissue shape, ECM heterogeneity, and fiber alignment for studying cancer cell invasion.

Findings

DIGME enables controlled 3D tumor organoid patterning.

DIGME reveals how ECM heterogeneity influences cancer invasion.

DIGME offers a new platform for probing tumor-microenvironment interactions.

Abstract

Multicellular migration and pattern formation play important roles in developmental biology, cancer metastasis and wound healing. To understand the collective cell dynamics in three dimensional extracellular matrix (ECM), we have developed a simple and mechanical-based strategy, Diskoid In Geometrically Micropatterned ECM (DIGME). DIGME allows easy engineering of the shape of 3-D tissue organoid, the mesoscale ECM heterogeneity, and the fiber alignment of collagen-based ECM all at the same time. We have employed DIGME to study the collective cancer invasion and find that DIGME provides a powerful tool to probe three dimensional dynamics of tumor organoid in patterned microenvironment.